Chapter 17: Nothing to Earn

Willem's POV

Today was the first time I had ever asked Claire to wait, and she had thrown the word back at me.

I had done the waiting myself for five years, reading her audits every spring.

I had told myself that was the decent way to do it.

She stood in the doorway of her aunt's house in a cardigan and bare feet and looked at my wet hair.

"You walked here."

"The car's at the Fund. I didn't think about the car."

"You don't have a coat."

"It's on the back of my chair at the office. So is the banana."

She laughed, and then she took a handful of my sweater and pulled me over the threshold.

"Third stair creaks," she whispered. "My aunt sleeps with one ear open."

We went up on the outsides of our feet.

At the top she shut her door and leaned back against it.

I stood in front of her, close enough to hear her breathing.

The room was small, with a narrow bed and a lamp with a yellow shade.

Two ultrasound pictures were propped on the dresser, and a stack of audit binders sat on the floor.

"I was angry at you all day," she said.

"I know."

"I'm still a little angry."

"I know that too."

"Come here anyway."

I kissed her against the door.

She tasted of mint tea.

Her hands went up under my sweater and across my back, and I forgot everything I had walked there to say.

The baby kicked against my stomach, and we stopped and laughed into each other's mouths.

"Hello to you too," I said to her stomach.

She walked me backward to the bed and sat down on the edge and reached for my belt.

"Claire."

"Let me do something for you. You drove me, you fed me, you called the nurse. Let me even it up."

I took both her hands and held them still.

"Is this a bill?"

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Fiancé's Prenup Erased Me, So I Rewrote My Life from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.